Obama faces new budget pressures

As key senators met Monday evening on a bipartisan deficit reduction plan, President Barack Obama faced increased pressure to articulate a strategy for himself and his party, already so edgy about spending cuts that many Democrats seem prepared to ignore the consequences for policy.

Indeed, Obama and House Republican leaders share this much in the coming budget wars: Both are racing to catch up with the train. And just as the president must contend with panicky Democrats, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) faces tea party freshmen wanting to more than double the $32 billion in reductions now proposed by the GOP for the last seven months of this fiscal year.

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Wednesday’s House Republican conference will be a first test of just how powerful these demands are. But some observers believe that if the House were to stay close to the $32 billion range, Republicans might be able to push through the package in the Senate, where Democrats face their own deadline for action in March.

As now drafted, the House bill promises pro-defense lawmakers in both parties stable funding for the military — not unlike what Democrats proposed in December as part of their own omnibus measure. And while the domestic spending cuts are deep and controversial, Senate Democrats voted by a 2-1 margin just last week in favor of an amendment cutting $44 billion from unobligated funds to pay for a small-business-backed amendment to the health care law.

All of these cuts, however disruptive, are dwarfed by the $1.5 trillion deficit projected for this year. And with the Treasury expected to exhaust its borrowing authority by the end of May, this has spurred bipartisan efforts to resurrect the recommendations of last year’s presidential debt commission.

Running close to two hours and hosted by Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) in his third floor Capitol offices, the meeting had an equal mix of Democrats—Durbin, Conrad, and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner—and Republicans: Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Mike Crapo of Idaho.

Durbin, Conrad, Coburn and Crapo are all veterans of the commission while Warner and Chambliss—an old friend of Boehner’s—have joined forces in an effort to advance the same agenda.